Rototilled into Submission

My Hide and Seek Partner from Last Night

We’ve been so busy travelling and visiting over the past few weekends that I honestly looked forward to yesterday’s Patriots’ Day holiday as a chance to get to work on the next phase of the back yard terraces. I traced out the next wall while my wife was away at Zumba but she had other plans for me which she ruthlessly enforced for the rest of the day. I did get to work outside all day which was what I hoped for but as the old saying goes, be careful what you wish for.

Final Phase Traced Out n Hillside

It’s been a long time since I’ve had my butt so thoroughly kicked as it was yesterday. We’re talking an epic beat down. I unwisely acquiesced to my wife’s emerging vision for yet another series of vast gardens. She’s been notably inactive in this regard since we moved in last year, mainly because she spent most of the year down in Panama. There was no denying her now as the weather turned towards spring but first there was this pesky thing called a lawn to deal with.

Wrestling with the Demon Spawn

I had an inflated opinion of my ability to physically deal with a large rototiller and told her I could easily create the gardens she was looking for. I rented the machine which looked innocent but possessed the heart of a demon. I’m sure someone with more experience with the machine would have laughed at my efforts and pointed out the correct way to deploy the damned thing. With no instruction manual I went with my default setting of brute force and ignorance and paid the price. This wouldn’t have been a problem twenty years ago which was the last time I used one of these things.

So Much Fun

Inside of the first twenty minutes and only the smallest future garden cleared my arms felt like they were going to fall off. I still had another two hours of rototilling left and certainly wasn’t going to admit to my wife that I was getting my ass kicked by a smallish machine, but that was the sad truth. To add insult to injury my wife insisted I wear sun screen on the bright sunny day. I think that has to do with my serial bouts with skin cancer, just guessing. Since we’re early in sun season we didn’t have any sun screen except for a roll-on stick we had for my granddaughter’s visits. She liberally applied the stuff to my face which had me looking like Betelgeuse while out in the front yard. I half expected a copyright infringement suit from Michael Keaton.

The New Gardens

I eventually finished the three major gardens while my wife was raking out the destroyed tufts of grass and seemingly endless supply of rocks. Just when I thought it was time for some serious recovery operations in the Man Cave she disabused me of this with a trip to Home Depot which was conveniently near where we had to drop of the rented demon machine. I got some weird looks for the white pancake makeup/sunscreen I was still wearing. She found some large evergreen trees that perfectly fit her plan for a screen between our back yard and the neighbors’. Since I’m an idiot I told her I could get them in the ground with no problem (when will I learn that I don’t have to prove physical prowess anymore?).

The Screen Trees

Since the trees were fairly large it took two trips to get all six back to the house. I finally looked at the planting instructions and found I had to dig a hole twice the depth of the pot for each one! That was around four feet deep into the rock laden soil I had so much fun with during my terracing project. I was able to get four of the six into the ground before I reached muscle failure point in my arms. Luckily the sun was going down so I could use that as an excuse to stop.

Face Timing with Grandparents

Giving us a Hug

And a Kiss

It was around that time that my granddaughter checked in with the nightly FaceTime call. She seemed inordinately cheerful as she downed her favorite chicken casserole and waited for me to entertain her. Since I can deny her nothing we played a silly game of hide and seek on the video screen. She seems to have new words each day and picked up “Whoops” from her grandmother during our last visit. She was exactly the medicine needed at that torturous end of the day.

2d Gen Curbside Time

Already Good Friends

We also checked in on the grandpuppy Riggins who had an even more challenging day than I did since he had a date with the emasculation doctor. He came through fine and was dealing with wearing the cone of shame for the next two weeks. The ABFA seemed to have a tougher time of it as he primary acolyte was in pain. Speaking of pain, one of the interesting things about rapidly aging middle aged bodies is the reaction after a day of hard labor. It was “almost” entertaining as new and exotic muscle cramps popped up last night whenever I made a sudden move. I learned to ease through the final waking hours but did feel some degree of satisfaction with all the work we got done, painful as it was.